faggot tree

I loved her. I loved her beautiful, long, flowing blonde hair, I loved her clear, blue eyes, I loved her fair skin covered in cute little freckles, and I loved the way words just flowed from her tongue like her windpipe was a river and her mouth an estuary, sending the most wonderful phrases and pronunciations out into the ocean of noise around her.

She had told me I spoke “like an Asian” a short while after we started dating, though I had and still have no idea what that meant. I certainly didn’t feel that I had any kind of accent in English, and if I did, well, that was frankly quite pathetic. That would mean I had an accent in both Korean and English. I know she didn’t say it in a mean way or have any kind of malice or judgment in her mind when she said it; I guess I just think about that kind of stuff too much.

“Dave,” she said as she scooted closer to me on the couch. “You think… maybe… after this movie…” I looked at her just in time to see her gaze jump to the floor where it stayed as her face got beet red. I looked at her quizzically though I had a feeling I knew what she was about to say.

Instead of continuing, she cuddled up close to me and stuffed her face into my neck. I could feel her warm breath on my skin and it tickled. I tried very hard not to flinch. I just kept staring straight ahead of myself then. The movie was certainly odd. I didn’t get the title, but I found it kind of funny that every movie about World War II that has Japanese in it always shows them as so brutal and cruel. I wondered if that was actually true of them back then.

Cecilia’s breathing started to speed up a bit, and her heart was beating faster; I could feel it from how she rested herself on my shoulder. Her hand reached toward me and settled itself on my thigh.

I kept staring straight ahead. She moved her hand up and up and up until she was touching my crotch. Even though she couldn’t see me at all, I still turned my face away from her in embarrassment. Why did she have to do this now, I thought.

For a few minutes I let her rub on me but not much happened. She clearly grew frustrated after a bit because her hand went back to my thigh, and I felt pressure as she pushed herself from my shoulder until she was sitting normally on the couch again. In the movie, the white guy with dark hair was being beaten by a Japanese man for speaking up. I didn’t want to look at Cecilia. I was still too embarrassed.

All was silent between us for a while and the only sound going on was the melodramatic yelling from the heavily-accented Japanese actors as they butchered English, and the heavily-accented white actor as he butchered Japanese. I found it a bit funny but did not laugh.

“Dave… Do you not like me?” I heard Cecilia ask over the noise.

I finally looked at her. “What?” I said. “What have I ever done that made you think that?”

She bit her lip. “We haven’t… well… you know…”

I stared at her.

“It’s not normal.”

Oh. I couldn’t tell her that I liked her too much to do something like that to her. “I’m just… not feeling it. Ya know?”

“You’re never ‘feeling it’.”

“Well…”

“If you aren’t attracted to me then just say so.”

“I am attracted to you. I just don’t want to…” Fuck. What was it girls liked hearing when this type of stuff went on? “I don’t want to rush things,” I decided on.

“We’ve been together months now.”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t say anything, but scooted back over to her side of the couch and continued watching the movie in complete silence.

I tried to keep thinking about how weird it was that the director alienated everyone. English-speakers couldn’t understand the Japanese, Japanese-speakers couldn’t understand the English. What was the point? But my mind just kept going back to how disappointed I’d made Cecilia, and I hated that the thought was so intrusive. It reminded me of when I was little and I would get in trouble with my parents. The worst was when I’d messed up so bad that they wouldn’t even get mad at me; they’d just be upset. I hated it so much because it somehow hurt worse than being hit.

The rest of the night was very awkward.